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NYT Connections · #1186

NYT Connections Hints & Answers (#1186) — September 9, 2026

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Earlier Sep 8 This puzzle Sep 9 Later Sep 10

“Lock in the long, unambiguous words first — they point to one group with no real competition from the rest of the grid.SAW has appeared in Connections more times than almost any other word. Most recently it showed up in Connections #1168 (Aug 22, 2026) as a carpentry tool. Today it is wearing a very different hat. IT has also appeared before — as a corporate department in Connections #578 (Jan 9, 2025) and as a pronoun in Connections #84 (Sep 3, 2023). Neither of those roles applies today.”

NYT Connections hints for September 9, 2026

Three levels of help — a definition for every word, colour-coded group nudges, and a heads-up on the traps. Skip to all answers →

1

Word clues

A spoiler-free definition for every word in the grid. Tap the eye on any card to reveal which colour-group it belongs to.

1 ARACHNOPHOBIAA real phobia name that doubles as a 1990 horror film about a spider invasion.
2 BEWILDERINGLeaves you spinning — the most viscerally confusing word of the four.
3 BRUTEBRUTE FORCE — raw, unsubtle power applied without finesse.
4 ELECTROMAGNETICELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE — one of nature's four fundamental forces, governing electricity and magnetism.
5 ESOTERICUnderstood only by a small, specialist crowd — obscure by design.
6 GG-FORCE — the crushing acceleration felt by pilots and astronauts.
7 HALLOWEENJohn Carpenter's 1978 slasher that launched Michael Myers into pop culture.
8 INCOMPREHENSIBLEThe longest word here and the most literal: simply beyond comprehension.
9 ITLooks like a pronoun; it is actually the Stephen King clown-horror franchise.
10 MICROBREWERYMicro- signals small scale here in its everyday sense — a small-batch beer operation, not a measurement of millionths.
11 MINIVANMini- is a colloquial 'small' prefix — the vehicle name literally means a smaller van.
12 NANOTECHNOLOGYNano- is the SI prefix for one billionth — engineering at the scale of individual atoms.
13 OPAQUEUsually describes blocked light; here it means a meaning you cannot see through.
14 PICOSECONDPico- is the SI prefix for one trillionth — a unit of time too brief to perceive.
15 SAWReads as a past-tense verb or a tool; here it is the Jigsaw killer's franchise.
16 TASKTASK FORCE — a temporary team assembled for a specific mission.
2

Group hints

Four colour-coded groups, easiest → hardest. Every button reveals the hint, the category name, or a single word — tap only what you need.

See Hint Your friend's explanation left you more confused than before.
See Group HARD TO UNDERSTAND
See WordBEWILDERING
See WordESOTERIC
See WordINCOMPREHENSIBLE
See WordOPAQUE
See Hint Each word carries a size-shrinking prefix inside it.
See Group WORDS WITH "SMALL" PREFIXES
See WordMICROBREWERY
See WordMINIVAN
See WordNANOTECHNOLOGY
See WordPICOSECOND
See Hint You would not want to be alone in a dark cinema watching any of these.
See Group HORROR MOVIES
See WordARACHNOPHOBIA
See WordHALLOWEEN
See WordIT
See WordSAW
See Hint Each word turns into something powerful when you add a single common word after it.
See Group WORDS BEFORE "FORCE"
See WordBRUTE
See WordELECTROMAGNETIC
See WordG
See WordTASK
3

Words the puzzle wants you to mis-group

Read these before you guess — they're the words most likely to break a streak. Tap for the trap.

1 G Tap to see why this word traps.
You're probably reading it as a musical note or a shorthand for 'giga-', which might pull it toward the metric-prefix group — but the puzzle is using it as a standalone word that pairs with another word to name a physical phenomenon.
2 IT Tap to see why this word traps.
You're almost certainly reading it as a pronoun — that is the obvious trap — but here it is a proper noun, a title, not a word describing a thing.
3 OPAQUE Tap to see why this word traps.
You're probably thinking of light not passing through a material, which could feel scientific — but the puzzle is using it in a figurative, non-physics sense.
4 ARACHNOPHOBIA Tap to see why this word traps.
You're likely reading it as the clinical name for fear of spiders — a real psychological term — but the puzzle is treating it as a title, not a diagnosis.

NYT Connections answers for September 9, 2026

All four groups revealed, easiest first. Each card holds the theme, the four words, and why the group works.

Y HARD TO UNDERSTAND · Yellow · easiest
  • BEWILDERING
  • ESOTERIC
  • INCOMPREHENSIBLE
  • OPAQUE

BEWILDERING, ESOTERIC, INCOMPREHENSIBLE and OPAQUE all mean hard to understand or follow. OPAQUE is the sneakiest — most solvers picture a frosted window before the figurative meaning clicks.

G WORDS WITH "SMALL" PREFIXES · Green · easy
  • MICROBREWERY
  • MINIVAN
  • NANOTECHNOLOGY
  • PICOSECOND

MICROBREWERY, MINIVAN, NANOTECHNOLOGY and PICOSECOND each begin with a prefix meaning small — micro-, mini-, nano- and pico- respectively. Three of those (micro-, nano-, pico-) are formal SI metric prefixes with precise values, while mini- is a colloquial diminutive; what unites all four is the shared sense of smallness built into the word.

B HORROR MOVIES · Blue · medium
  • ARACHNOPHOBIA
  • HALLOWEEN
  • IT
  • SAW

ARACHNOPHOBIA, HALLOWEEN, IT and SAW are all horror movie titles. ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990) is the easiest to miss — it reads as a clinical phobia name rather than a film.

P WORDS BEFORE "FORCE" · Purple · hardest
  • BRUTE
  • ELECTROMAGNETIC
  • G
  • TASK

BRUTE, ELECTROMAGNETIC, G and TASK all precede the word FORCE — giving BRUTE FORCE, ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE, G-FORCE and TASK FORCE. ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE is the hardest leap — it is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, and the full phrase is rarely seen in everyday speech.

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